In 1965 Bob Dylan was asked whether he considered himself more a singer or a poet. He answered, famously, “Oh, I think of myself as more of a song and dance man, y’know?” The moment is immortalized in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary “Don’t Look Back,” and looking back, the quote is useful not only as a means to understand the supposedly perpetually “mysterious” Dylan, but in considering the similarly mysterious relationship between art and entertainment.
Why then did Dylan shy from the question, the very asking of which appears to legitimate his standing as an artist of wide public appreciation, a figure who fundamentally altered the course of one of the 20th century’s most culturally and artistically enduring and influential forms by injecting poetry into rock and roll? Or did he shy away at all?
I think, rather, that Dylan’s answer is a bold statement on the nature of art, a nature which critics overwhelmingly miss: that though “art” ought to, and by proper definition does, at least in some sense, attain a higher standard than that which we call entertainment does not, it can’t be anything good if it is not first entertaining; reading “Ulysses” may be time consuming, but people who have made it through surely found it amusing in some sense. After all, art at its best is entertaining in all the senses of the word: and the scale of appreciation of those senses largely determines the range of art which one appreciates.
The more entertaining art is, the better it is, so long as we’re not exclusive about what we find entertaining. You laughed at “Reservoir Dogs,” right? Well, good: it’s a hilarious movie, and disgustingly bloody and nihilistic to boot, all of which make it entertaining. Looking at Mark Rothko paintings is a blast too, but only if you open your mind long enough to be hypnotized by them.
Dylan again provides a useful example with his voice: in this case not what he says, but the nasal whine with which he says it. Many people cite Dylan’s voice as the reason they don’t listen to him.
They’re wrong not to like it, but personal taste aside, Dylan’s voice is not merely an unfortunate exception to an otherwise supremely talented dude. It’s intentional, bred from hillbilly singers white and black, Hank Williams (especially the crooning on “Nashville Skyline”), studied and perfectly appropriate to Dylan’s standing as a modernist master, at each step referencing the past and at the same time eschewing its definitions: in this case of what is entertaining. In this context, Dylan’s voice is not the obstacle it is for many singer/songwriters, but his most compelling aspect as a performer, if only one can look beyond its initial uncouthness.
Like all “art,” rock and roll has been very “serious” at times, and taken as such by its appreciators.
The genre “singer-songwriter” has typically suffered the most [see Will Oldham, Conor Oberst, or whatever they may be calling themselves this week, and farther back in history, Bread]. Along with many others, such as Warren Zevon, Leonard Cohen, Townes van Zandt, Weezy, etc., Dylan has proved himself thoroughly entertaining, even when esoteric and obstinate. As such he represents an artist who, though certainly sincere and thoroughly committed to his craft, is likewise aware of his relative importance in society: Dylan has said he’d perhaps rather have been a doctor so that he could make a more significant impact. As such, the experience effected by appreciating his art in a sense transcends appreciation: it’s fun, and meant to be so, not at all dissimilar from watching a song and dance man.
